Rating:
PG-13
House:
The Dark Arts
Ships:
Ginny Weasley/Harry Potter
Characters:
Harry Potter
Genres:
Mystery
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire Order of the Phoenix Quidditch Through the Ages Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Stats:
Published: 02/19/2004
Updated: 07/29/2007
Words: 410,658
Chapters: 40
Hits: 159,304

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Barb

Story Summary:
Aunt Marge's arrival causes Harry to flee to avoid performing accidental magic again. But when number four, Privet Drive is attacked, he becomes the chief suspect and a fugitive from both the Muggle police and the Ministry. He tries going to Mrs Figg's but finds unfamiliar wizards there. With an Invisibility Cloak and nowhere to turn he hides in the house next door, to keep watch on Mrs Figg's. He has no idea that this will irrevocably alter the rest of his life....
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Chapter 37 - The Wish

Chapter Summary:
Parvati has an unexpected visitor on the eve of Harry's thirty-second birthday who sets events in motion that will, paradoxically, affect events exactly sixteen years earlier...
Posted:
05/07/2007
Hits:
1,720

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~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The Wish


Half-an-hour before calling Harry on the borrowed mobile, Parvati had been sleeping peacefully in her flat above the shop in Diagon Alley. She might have gone on sleeping peacefully despite the crashing and noise in the shop below--including the shattering of an antique crystal ball worth over one-hundred Galleons--if the racket in the shop hadn't startled her cat so badly that he raced across Parvati's slumbering body, digging his claws into the soft skin on the back of her thigh and giving her one of the rudest possible awakenings she'd every received.

After her initial scream of shock and pain, she grumbled, "Bloody hell, Phantom," to the bristling solid-grey cat who was still bouncing off every surface he could find, his tail the size of a bundle of broomstick twigs. But having awoken to complain to the cat and rub her painful wound, she now heard the noise in the shop. A burglar! she thought, a lump rising in her throat. She took her wand from the bedside table and slid her feet into her slippers, swiftly wrapping her dressing gown around her body and tying the belt.

He won't know what hit him, she thought grimly as she crept stealthily down the stairs to the shop, deftly avoiding the third step from the bottom, which squeaked. It's not every shopkeeper in Diagon Alley who trained in Harry Potter's DA...

Although, of course, two other shopkeepers--the Weasley twins--had also done exactly that. She normally felt quite safe at night, and even when she'd heard some bumps and other alarming noises (the building settling, her landlord assured her) she also knew that, just across the way, Fred and George were sleeping in their flat above their own shop, which was oddly reassuring to think about, despite their carefree, happy-go-lucky ways. Each twin had, at various times, chatted her up and asked her out, but much as she liked them and was amused by them and their products, she didn't feel that they were really her "type". They'd never gone without female companionship for long--nearly every morning it seemed that she saw them bidding pretty girls goodbye from their front door, which had scandalised poor old Madam Malkin from the start and still did--but she didn't feel like being one of the many notches on their bedposts and still try to maintain a neighbourly relationship with them. Now she almost wished that one of them had been sleeping beside her when the cat had detected the intruder...

No, she thought sternly, chastising herself. Don't be stupid. You don't need a man for protection. Especially not one--or two--to whom you're not otherwise attracted. You're perfectly capable. This wanker will be sorry he ever set foot in my shop.

Suddenly she pushed open the door to the shop proper, cried, "Shop lights lumos!" to bring up the lights in the wall sconces and table lamps and stood in the doorway with her wand at the ready, hoping she'd startled the intruder.

She had. Her visitor collided with a display of aromatic candles and caused the shelves--and every last candle--to come crashing down. The candles were the least of her worries, though; they appeared to have been knocked down by--nothing. She could feel a presence, an aura, and a familiar one, but she could see nothing except for--a foot. Standing in front of the shelves that had previously held the candles was a black Oxford with a foot in it; the foot wore a grey argyle sock, easily visible beneath some black robes hovering about five inches above the toe of the shoe. She stepped forward cautiously, looking carefully away from where she knew the intruder to be standing, not quite hidden now by an Invisibility Cloak. He clearly didn't know that part of him could be seen, because he stood stock-still, barely breathing, obviously hoping that he could escape her notice. When she was right next to him, however, she turned abruptly, grasped the slippery-soft material of the Invisibility Cloak, and pulled it off him, crying, "Aha!" and pointing her wand at his face. However, once she got a look at him she abruptly dropped her wand and he had to grab her arm to keep her upright, she was so shocked.

He had a full head of very messy white hair but the green eyes, scar and glasses looked the same. His skin was barely lined around the mouth and eyes, but she could see that there were some slight signs of aging there. He looked sheepishly at her.

"I'm so sorry, Parvati. I badly miscalculated my landing when I Apparated here. I probably should have planned to arrive in the Alley and rung the bell, but I didn't want to take my Cloak off outdoors and risk anyone seeing me, and if you'd looked out the window, not seeing anyone ringing the bell, you'd have just gone back to sleep again..."

"Sleep!" she said with exasperation, sinking into a chair. "I don't think there's any danger of that ever happening again! What on earth are you doing here, Harry? And why have you done that to your hair? You'll probably not go grey--or white--until you're well over eighty or ninety, if then, so why speed up the process?"

He smiled ruefully. "Because you'd be amazed how much more respect you get when you have white hair. I've found it very useful in my current job."

"Your current job? But your current job is teaching at--" She stopped abruptly and really took in what Harry was wearing, the robes of office, the sash with the seal of the Ministry of Magic on it.

"Harry," she demanded to know, indignant on behalf of the person whom he was impersonating, "why are you dressed up as the Minister for Magic?" He looked down at his attire, then up at her again.

"Because I am the Minister for Magic."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"What do you mean you're going out?"

Ginny looked up from the letter she was writing to Charlie; the tea she'd been drinking sat by her elbow on the scrubbed kitchen table and Harry noticed that she was using his favourite eagle-feather quill, which was also her favourite.

"Didn't you hear what Moody was saying a minute ago? He was just here and now he's gone."

"I thought I heard the pair of you talking, but I was concentrating on what I wanted to write to Charlie, not eavesdropping on you and our resident ghost."

"And my mobile rang."

"Yes, I heard that, too. What's going on, Harry?" she wanted to know, her brow furrowing. He sat down opposite her, glancing around their kitchen for a moment first, trying to imprint the image of their home on his mind.

"Do you remember when Parvati worked out that I'd had a memory charm put on me? By me, a me who was travelling through time, back to the night of my sixteenth birthday?" Ginny put down the quill and swallowed, nodding slowly. "Well, it's time. It's supposed to be tonight, just after midnight. Parvati just called me."

"Parvati has a mobile?" Ginny brushed this question away a moment later, saying, "Sorry, I shouldn't be distracted by that. How does she know it's supposed to be tonight?"

Harry took a deep breath. "She wouldn't tell me. She just says that she knows."

"And how on earth are you supposed to travel back in time sixteen years, anyway?" she demanded. "Even if all of the Time-Turners hadn't been destroyed, you'd need to spend a whole day, if not more, just turning it over and over to go back one year!" Her voice was shaking and Harry wanted to take her in his arms and reassure her, but somehow he suddenly felt that he didn't have the right. The one thing neither of them had brought up--that he was going back in time to sleep with Tilda, so that she would conceive Teddy and the current timeline would be maintained--hung in the air between them, the proverbial sixteen-ton elephant in the room.

"I don't know. She doesn't seem worried by that. She wants me to come to her shop in an hour so that we can discuss what I'm going to do. And to avoid my giving away things that will happen in the future she's going to put another memory charm on me, a very selective one that will only be temporary. I'll remember all of my life up until I'm around sixteen--slightly older, actually--but that's it. I won't remember things like going through the Veil, marrying you, our kids..."

"So that's how it's to be," she said quietly. "That makes sense, I suppose. I've wondered, from time to time, how you could just go back to that night and sleep with another woman in cold blood, do it while knowing that you're married. I wondered whether you did it because we divorced by that time, or you'd grown tired of me and wanted to hark back to your youth... But you won't remember me at all, except as Ron's little sister." Her voice had become nearly inaudible and unshed tears made her eyes shine.

Harry's heart ached; how could he do this to her? But he didn't have much choice; the last time he'd even thought, for a moment, that he could never bring himself to do such a thing Charlotte had become Splinched, stuck half-way through her cot. A Healer from St Mungo's had hurried out to the house to take care of her, and she'd spent the next day in the children's ward of the hospital, for observation. Ginny knew that he had to do this eventually; however, it had always been theoretical, something in the distant, indistinct future. Not something that was going to happen in an hour or two--now.

"So," he said, bracingly, trying not to think about what she'd just said. "I'm going to change my clothes and get ready to leave for Diagon Alley. I'm sorry that I'll be missing my birthday party tomorrow, but on the other hand, at least I don't have to go to Malfoy's stag party," he said a little too loudly, too jovially, trying too hard to put a good face on all of it.

She looked at him in distress. "You're going alone?"

"Erm, of course. Do you really want to be there, Ginny? And anyway, once she puts the spell on me, it could rather be a giveaway for me to see you..."

"Then I'll make certain that you don't," she said stoutly. "But--I do want to go with you. I can wait in Parvati's shop while she puts the memory charm on you and you--you do whatever you're going to do to travel back sixteen years…"

He wondered for a moment whether she would try to talk him out of doing it; he had a feeling that if she did he would comply, and then where would they be? "You do know, Ginny, that I have to do this? We can't risk what would happen if I didn't. It would be--"

"--a disaster. Yes, yes, I know," she said miserably, then laughed ruefully, humourlessly. It was a dreadful sound. "How many wives get to send their husbands off to sleep with another woman, knowing that he'll be saving the world by doing so?"

She was crying freely now. "Oh, Ginny, don't do this to yourself..." He walked around the table and pulled her to her feet, holding her tightly as she sobbed into his chest. He couldn't prevent the tears trickling down his own face. "I love you, Ginny, I love you so much... I'm glad she suggested the memory charm, because I don't see how I could possibly do this if I remembered how much I love you. You understand that, right?" he said, searching her own tear-streaked face. She nodded and put her head on his chest again; he tightened his arms around her and said, "I just wish this were over already. I hate time-travelling; I never want to do it again after this."

She nodded. "I'm not especially fond of it myself and I've never even done it." She tried to smile but he could see how half-hearted it was.

"We should talk to the boys, let them know we're going to be out for a little bit. Well, that you're going to be out for a little bit and that I'll have to miss my birthday party tomorrow. I'm sure Nate and Teddy can handle the girls. They're already in bed, anyway."

Ginny agreed and Harry watched her leave the kitchen to call to the boys so that they could discuss what was going to happen. Harry gripped the back of a chair, seeing blurrily, through his teary eyes, the letter that Ginny had started writing to her brother. All was well, everyone was happy, they were going to have a party for Harry's birthday tomorrow...

He sighed, turning away from the cheerful letter, wondering whether he--or Ginny--would ever feel that cheerful again.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"You're the Minister for Magic?" Parvati said, crossing her arms on her chest. "Did you hit your head, Harry? You think you're the Minister, you've dyed your hair white--"

"Not dyed. I'm a Metamorphmagus, remember?" He concentrated very hard, his eyes closed, and the hair turned deep black again. Then he continued to concentrate and the pigment dissipated until the hair on the top of his head was pure white once more. "I'm also not about to turn thirty-two, which is, perhaps, why you are confused. I'm actually sixty-four."

"Wh-what?" she sputtered.

"I think we should go to your Reading Room and sit down. It's not a very long story, but it's not very short, either."

She eyed him warily for another moment before nodding. "You first," she said, gesturing toward the bead curtain leading to the anteroom that was the buffer between the shop and the room where she did her readings. He grinned at her.

"I trained you well. Fine, I'll go first." He led the way through the gently clinking curtain and then opened the door to the Reading Room, activating the candles on the walls without her help and settling himself at the table with a sigh.

Perhaps he really is in his sixties, she thought, trying to cope with this information. Which means that, wherever he came from, so am I. And so is Ginny, and so are the twins... That was definitely a strange thought: Fred and George in their sixties. Probably no less annoying, she thought, suddenly feeling rather disgruntled at the way her peaceful summer's night had been shattered.

"Let me explain to you how I got to this time in general, and then this time specifically," he began, but she interrupted him.

"Is there a difference?" she asked, frowning as she took her customary chair. The crystal ball on the table between them reflected his familiar face grotesquely, enlarging his nose and making his cranium recede as though it only accommodated a brain the size of a walnut. Perhaps I'm the one with a brain the size of a walnut, she thought, hoping she wouldn't later regret not hexing him.

"Quite a large one. To come back half of my lifetime--thirty-two years--I used something called The Birthday Wish Spell. That is also what the Harry who is about to turn thirty-two will use to return to the night of his--my--sixteenth birthday. However, I knew that by this time he wouldn't have learned about this spell, so I knew that the only way to inform him--and you--of it was to use it myself to come back here. I actually discovered it in a book in the Department of Mysteries almost ten years ago, but visiting myself with this information on my twenty-seventh birthday wouldn't have worked very well, especially since I didn't even know about Teddy's existence then. So I decided to wait until I would know about Teddy, but then you told me not to, because you said I was supposed to wait until my sixty-fourth birthday. Of course, that turned this whole thing into one of those incredibly annoying time-paradoxes, but when mucking about with time that's one of the things you have to deal with, which is just one of the many reasons that time-travel leaves such a sour taste in my mouth..."

"Birthday Wish Spell," she said, frowning.

"Yes. Of course, that brought me here, because he was indeed here just at midnight, preparing to cast the spell to go back sixteen years. It was good to see that. Having seen that that would go swimmingly, however, I didn't stick around here, because I knew that, in order for that to occur, I'd need a little additional time to get everything in order. So I used this to come back a couple of extra hours," he said, taking a small hourglass on a chain from inside his shirt.

"A Time-Turner!" Parvati gasped. "But Hermione told me that they were all--"

"--destroyed, yes they were. But there are perks to being the Minister for Magic. Such as asking the Unspeakables to research and try to build just one more Time-Turner, which shall be destroyed as soon as I return to the future. They had almost ten years to do it, which turned out to be nearly not enough. But I was able to test it, finally, the day before yesterday, and it worked perfectly, so I knew I was ready to come here. If I'd needed to wait another day I could have, and turned the hourglass back twenty-six times instead of twice, but fortunately, that wasn't necessary.

"When I used the Time Turner, of course, it behaved as if I were the Harry in this time. Which makes sense although I was not expecting it. So after turning it twice, I ended up at St Clare's, fortunately still wearing my Invisibility Cloak. However, what I had forgotten was that, living or dead, my Cloak was never an impediment to Mad-Eye Moody, who, of course, spotted me immediately. I managed to convince him not to give me away and we conferred, privately, on what was going to occur. I also apologised deeply to him, but he insisted that it wasn't necessary. He told him that, too."

"Him?"

"Harry. Young Harry. And then he left." He paused thoughtfully. "Other than when I saw him when I went back to my sixteenth birthday, that was the last time in my life that I saw old Moody. His ghost, at any rate. He isn't even haunting Hogwarts. I don't know where ghosts go after they decide they've had enough of hanging about this world, but wherever it is, he's gone there, I assume. And then I Apparated here, but I miscalculated and banged into that lovely crystal ball..."

"It's from the Czech Republic," she said, nettled.

"Czech crystal?" He made a clucking sound with his tongue. "I'm truly sorry, Parvati. I know how dear that must be... Fifty Galleons? Seventy-five?"

"Over a hundred, actually. Can we get back to the matter at hand? What exactly are you doing here? Why not tell Harry himself what he has to do?"

He shook his head grimly. "Never a good idea, for a person from different times to encounter himself. I need you to be my go-between. You helped me work out that I'd been memory-charmed by me, when I was sixteen. You know the lay of the land in all this. And I know that you can perform memory charms as well; you told me that you've actually resorted to it once or twice to erase traumatic memories from your clients' minds, at their request. Or when they had a particularly bad fortune told and decided that they didn't want to know their futures after all, they'd rather at least be in the dark about it, instead of dreading some horrible day coming closer and closer. Only the memory charm I'm going to tell you about will specifically erase about half of young Harry's life--temporarily. This way he won't be able to give away information about the future. And he won't remember that he is married."

Parvati gasped. "Because if he remembered Ginny--"

He nodded. "Precisely. This is how it has to be."

She sighed. "You seem to have forgotten something. Harry and Ginny aren't on the Floo Network. I'll have to Apparate to a spot near their house, trudge through the grounds, knock on their door, hope they're not already asleep..."

"No need," he said, pulling out a small silver device. "I've come prepared. I've already placed one call since arriving, to verify that it works here. It does." He flipped open the top of the mobile and handed it to her. "Harry's number is right there. Just press the little green button and you'll be calling him." He shook his head. "I don't know why more witches and wizards don't get mobiles. Dead useful. You can't exactly carry a fireplace about in your pocket."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After talking to Harry on the mobile--the Harry who was the same age she was--Parvati paced the floor, waiting. Suddenly something occurred to her. "Wait--you said that I told you about memory-charming clients. When did I tell you that?" she demanded of the white-haired Harry.

He looked thoughtful. "It was probably about fifteen years ago." He looked away. "I was--very sad. And you asked me whether I wanted a memory charm. But some things--or people--should never be forgotten, even when remembering them is enormously painful. You were just trying to help..."

She swallowed. "Someone who--who died?"

He merely nodded, then stood and put on his Invisibility Cloak once more. "I shouldn't be out in the open here when they arrive. You did tell him to bring his Cloak, if I recall correctly?"

"Yes, yes, I did as you said. He should be bringing the Invisibility Cloak." She paused again, finding conversation with a sixty-four-year-old Harry more than a little disconcerting. "And what do you mean by they?"

She watched the door open and close but didn't hear the bead curtain rustle; he was still in the anteroom. She opened the door to go after him, but a moment later there was a double pop as Harry and Ginny arrived just outside the anteroom, holding hands and looking very pale.

After greeting them and ushering them into the Reading Room, Parvati turned to Ginny, her stomach squirming inside her at the thought of helping her husband to cheat on her. "I think--you should probably wait out in the shop, Ginny. There's a couch over near the Astrology books... I've given up on people actually buying them. They seem to think I'm running a shop so that they can just pop in and read their horoscope for the day, then pop out again without paying me so much as a Knut."

Ginny smiled grimly. "Of course." She stood on her toes to kiss Harry's cheek. "I'll see you--well, tomorrow, I suppose..."

But Harry wasn't going to let her get away with that. He pulled her to him and kissed her deeply, wrapping his arms firmly around her. Parvati turned away, giving them some semblance of privacy, but since the door to the anteroom was still open and she still hadn't heard the bead curtain rustle, except for when Harry and Ginny were entering from the shop, she knew that there was another person who could see them kissing.

Harry finally released her. "I love you. Don't forget that."

She nodded, looking like she was trying not to cry. "I love you, too," she whispered before turning and practically running through the anteroom and into the shop. Parvati waited a moment, then firmly closed the door, hoping with all her heart that she was really doing the right thing for her friends.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He watched her race across the floor of the shop to the purple velvet couch, throwing herself onto it and sobbing into a pillow, her shoulders wracking convulsively. So young, he thought. She's still so young. Not quite thirty-one. The bead curtain was still waving and making noise from her having passed through it, so he felt safe in quickly brushing against it to exit the anteroom, watching her, longing to touch her, to speak to her, to hold her in his arms.

It had been so long. Why was life so cruel? They should have been together for life. Well, they were. All of the rest of her life, at any rate. He hadn't expected to feel this way, to feel the loss so freshly upon seeing her...

But all at once she was on her feet, wiping the tears from her eyes with a determined expression. "This is stupid," she said to no one, hugging herself as though that were the only thing keeping her from flying to pieces. "I'm stupid." And with a wave of her wand and a very quiet popping noise, she was gone.

He frowned, resisting the urge to follow her, to do a tracing spell on what remained of her aura so that he could learn where she had gone. If he waited any longer the aura would dissipate and it would be too late. But he stayed where he was, telling himself that she was gone, she was dead and gone and he knew that he'd be seeing her again tonight, should have prepared himself for it.

But he hadn't.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ginny raised her hand and knocked softly on the rough panelled door. She didn't know how many other guests Old Tom might have this summer's night, but she didn't want to wake anyone else staying in the Leaky Cauldron. She only wanted to wake one person.

She heard shuffling footsteps and the knob turned. "Ginny!" he said, clearly shocked to see her. He hadn't tied the belt of his dressing gown before answering the door, but he did now, so that she could no longer see his boxers. She could still see his legs, though; she raised her eyes to his, feeling her face grow hot.

"Hello, Theo."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"So, repeat it back to me," Parvati said, her voice shaking.

Harry nodded. "I'm--I'm about to turn thirty-two. I only remember living about--well, more than half of that time, because I have a memory of going to Auror training yesterday. Am I an Auror?" he asked her.

"Damn... it didn't take as many years off your memory as I'd hoped..." she mumbled.

"Well, it sort of did... I mean, after sixteen, my memory's a little spotty. I'm not really clear on where I live, for instance, or even what I ate yesterday. And all of this is because I'm going to travel back in time to my sixteenth birthday?"

"Yes, and even though you're going to do that you have to avoid being seen by your sixteen-year-old self."

"So. The Invisibility Cloak," he said, holding it up.

"Right. You may speak to Tilda, however, when you get there. She knows all about this. Do you want to look over the Birthday Wish Spell again?"

He shook his head. "No, it seems pretty straightforward. But tell me again why I'm doing this?"

She drew her lips into a line. "I'm sorry, Harry. I can't. That would be telling you the future..."

"No, it would be telling me the present, but all right..." He sounded disgruntled. "And I have to do this--"

"--because we already know that you did this and you did some stuff when you travelled through time that, if you don't do it, will change time and destroy the world of the last sixteen years," she said in a rush.

"But you can't tell me the things that I did."

"Right."

He sighed and glanced down at the spell again. "And you're thirty-two now? And you have a Divination business?"

"Yes, Harry. Listen, the clock just chimed for midnight. You need to do the spell." He lifted his wand and looked at the parchment with the spell written on it. He'd just opened his mouth when Parvati cried, "Wait! Put on the Invisibility Cloak!" Once he'd disappeared under the Cloak he was ready; although she couldn't see him, she could hear him saying the words of the spell.

Out of nowhere, a tornado seemed to have been generated inside her small Reading Room; she was knocked to the floor by her own chair rising up and striking her painfully in the shoulder, then the last thing she remembered was a heavy book that had been resting peacefully on the table flying right at her head, and after that all was blackness.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry felt as if his body was being wrenched apart, molecule by molecule, but because he was no longer a coherent whole, there was no physical way for him to scream. He assumed that if he'd been accepted for Auror training that he'd learned to Apparate, and he had a strange, vague memory of it--but it was neither like Apparating nor travelling by Portkey. He wondered whether he had made a dreadful mistake, whether he'd managed to blow himself up, but he also had a bad feeling that thinking that was a sure way to make it happen...

It's going to be all right, he tried to tell himself, wishing he were a better liar. I don't even believe myself....

No! He tried to put a stop to the pessimism. I'm going to go back to my sixteenth birthday and see Tilda. It's going to be just fine....

But the feeling of being pulled apart in a thousand different directions continued, and he wasn't certain it was possible to think of anything other than pain, pain beyond unearthly pain....

He thought he was hallucinating at first, seeing his life flashing before his eyes prior to his death. The pain continued unabated, but as the images before him became clearer, he realized that he was seeing Tilda's living-room. Moreover, he was seeing his sixteen year old self in Tilda's living-room. Sixteen year old Harry was watching television, his arms crossed on his bare chest. He looked more than a little out of sorts and Harry's first instinct was to be embarrassed at ever having had such a petulant expression on his face.

It worked! he realised. I'm here, I'm really here. He stared even more critically at his younger self now. God, how had he ever thought Tilda could be interested in him? How had Cho or any other girl ever thought that she wanted to be with him?

His younger self was so thin Harry thought he could count the ribs under the almost translucent skin. He'd eaten fairly well since he'd come to be at Tilda's (at least, after she had discovered him), but when he'd been living with the Dursleys he was back on bare-minimum rations, which amounted to perhaps one-fourth of the food he'd been accustomed to eating each day at Hogwarts, let alone the huge piles of food Mrs Weasley always made for him. Plus he hadn't had much appetite to speak of after Sirius... That was yet another reason why he hadn't felt like he'd missed the leaving feast at the end of term...

Sirius. His godfather's death hit him suddenly, like a blow to the gut, winding him. His mind was a jumble; he could only remember random snatches here and there of anything from his life since the age of sixteen... It was a strange sort of amnesia, because he remembered being sixteen very, very vividly, so much so that it was painful. He hadn't realised how emotionally fraught everything seemed when he was that age. Why do I want to relive this again? he asked himself.

He looked again at young Harry. All he could think of was how much he loved Tilda, how much he had wanted her when he was sixteen, how much he wanted her now. As the grumpy sixteen year old Harry slumped lower and lower in his seat on the couch, his eyelids began to close. Harry watched his younger self, his heart beating painfully in his chest, the waiting becoming quite unbearable. Finally, the boy's eyes were closed and his head slumped; a string of saliva was connecting the corner of his mouth to his shoulder. Very carefully, Harry pressed the button to turn off the television. The abrupt silence made him wish he hadn't, however, for now he realized that there would be no noise to cover his exit and the sound of his climbing the stairs.

Young Harry had dropped off while still wearing his glasses; Harry carefully reached out, the Invisibility Cloak gently caressing his hand, and removed them from his own amazingly young face. It showed no signs, in repose, of the turmoil that filled his life. Only the scar suggested that Harry had not had as quiet and uneventful an existence as the other residents of Little Whinging.

After he placed the glasses on a table close by young Harry's left hand he carefully edged toward the stairs. Just as he was lifting his foot to step on the first tread, his young self snuffled and turned over in his sleep, so that he was in an awkward half-on-the-couch, half-off posture. Harry held his breath, waiting. Finally, the boy's breathing sounded deep and regular and Harry again attempted to climb the stairs. When he reached the top he let out a long relieved breath and went to the door of Tilda's bedroom. He hesitated for a moment; what if she had locked it? But the knob turned easily, with a silent click that he could feel under his hand.

To his surprise, Tilda was nowhere to be seen. He closed the door behind him, hearing a moment later the flush of the toilet, followed by running water. He paced the room nervously, still concealed by the Invisibility Cloak. What would he say to her? How could he explain his presence in her house at the age of thirty-two, rather than sixteen?

He was still vacillating, trying to decide how to approach this, when the door opened and she entered, once again wearing just an oversized man's shirt, rather than the T-shirt and jogging shorts she'd worn when she was sharing the room with young Harry. Harry drew in his breath at the sight of her, making more noise than he'd intended. She froze and then looked warily around the room with narrowed eyes. He practically jumped out of his skin when she abruptly turned on her heel and swung the door open again, stomping to the head of the stairs. From where he still stood in the bedroom he could see that she was bending over the railing, peering down the staircase into the hall. She frowned, straightened up again, and walked at a more sedate pace back to the bedroom, closing the door again.

She climbed into her bed, shaking her head, a half-smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. "Stupid, I'm just being stupid, he's fast asleep..." she muttered to herself. Harry swallowed, glad that she had just checked on his younger self. It might make this far easier.

"Tilda," he whispered hoarsely. She had been about to put her head on the pillow but now she opened her eyes wide and sat bolt upright.

"H-Harry?" she breathed, looking very confused. "I--I don't understand. I--I just saw you downstairs." She glanced around the room, still not knowing where he was.

Harry took a deep breath and pulled off the Invisibility Cloak.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Tilda screamed shrilly upon seeing him suddenly appear right next to her and Harry tried to put his hand over her mouth, but she bit him and continued screaming. He cried out himself and started shaking his hand in pain. Finally, unable to think of any other way to quiet her (and because kissing her was very fresh in his mind), he lowered his mouth to hers.

That turned out to be a terrible idea. She pulled away from him and abruptly slapped him hard across the face. His skin still stinging and his bitten fingers aching, he grabbed her by both wrists and hissed at her, "Please, Tilda. Don't scream again. I need to talk to you."

"But--but--but--" she stammered, as though stuck. She pulled her wrists from his grasp and rubbed them, staring but mercifully not screaming. "I don't understand," she finally managed to say. "You--you're Harry? But--but you look--"

"Well, I'm not sixteen anymore, am I?" he said reasonably.

"You tell me!" she snapped, clearly irritated. "And how can you be here, looking like this, and there," she said, pointing at the floor, "at the same time?"

He swallowed and took a deep breath. "I travelled back through time. When I left, it was my thirty-second birthday. I cast a special spell that allowed my birthday wish to come true. A wish to come back in time exactly half my lifetime..."

He smiled sheepishly at her; she stared at him with her mouth open in disbelief, speechless. However, a moment later, he heard footsteps on the stairs and he swore under his breath.

"Damn! I forgot. But it'll be okay. He'll be gone in a minute." He pulled his Cloak over his head again, disappearing from her view. A moment later there was a knock on the door and Harry's young voice was heard:

"Tilda? Are you all right? I heard you scream."

Tilda jumped when she felt the Cloak brush against her arm and legs; very close to her, Harry's thirty-two-year-old voice whispered, "Tell him you stubbed your toe and you're all right now."

She moved her mouth without making a sound for a few moments, then finally cleared her throat and said, "I--I'm fine, Harry. Go back downstairs. I just stubbed my toe. I'm going to sleep now. Good night."

There was a pause before the young Harry's voice was heard saying, "Oh. Okay, then. Good--good night." There was no mistaking how disappointed he sounded. His footsteps receded and then thudded briefly on each step as he descended to the living-room again. Harry took off his Cloak and sighed with relief, walking to the door and locking it, then leaning against it.

"I should have remembered that, but my head is in such a muddle right now..."

She stood before him, her hands on her hips, looking very put-out. "Should have remembered what? And how do I know you're really Harry? How do I know you're not some evil wizard come here to try to hurt him, or me? How do I know what side you're on? Perhaps I should scream again and get him back up here!" she said, pointing a shaking finger at the floor.

He thought about it for a few seconds before saying, "No. You won't."

Tilda raised one eyebrow. "Oh, I won't? And how do you know I won't?"

He shrugged. "Because you didn't. It's coming back to me now a little more clearly..."

"I still don't understand. What do you mean it's 'coming back' to you? Coming back from where?"

"I mean that I'm remembering more specific things instead of just general stuff. After all, sixteen years ago--well, sixteen years ago for me--that was me who knocked on the door and asked you if you were all right. And I can tell you now that after I went back downstairs I sat on the couch in the living room sulking and, well--" He felt himself redden. She frowned.

"What? What were you going to say?"

He clamped his mouth shut and looked down at her legs, then up at her rather angry face again. "Well, I spent the night thinking about you, didn't I? And what we almost--"

Her jaw dropped open. "We did not almost anything! We kissed, that was all, and I put a stop to that!"

"You did," he conceded, "but--well, you're the one who started taking my clothes off--"

This turned out to be the wrong thing to say. She turned a very deep shade of red and hissed at him, "I am not a child molester. Is that what this is all about? Are you just pretending to be Harry, using some magic spell to travel here from the future so you can find out whether I did anything inappropriate with him? Well I didn't. At least," she conceded, "nothing other than kissing. Just a little kissing, that is. And--and okay," she admitted, "I did start to take his--your--his shirt off..." she stammered, trailing off in confusion.

"No, I'm not a time-travelling Auror. I--I really did make a birthday wish," he said, smiling at her. "Just like I said. I made a wish to come back to where I was on my sixteenth birthday so I could see you, Tilda."

He came closer to her and reached out his hand to her; after a moment's hesitation, she reached out her hand as well. His heart swelled to feel her thin fingers in his grasp and she looked up at him in wonder.

"It's--it's really you? And--and you're thirty-two years old?"

He smiled at her. "Yes. It's really me. We're the same age now." She laughed and pulled her hand from his grasp, running her hands through her hair and going to sit in the chair near the wardrobe. He continued to smile at her. "What's so funny?"

She looked up at him, shaking her head. "It's just that--I'm not sure whose birthday wish was granted, yours or mine. I was actually wishing that you were older, that you were my age.... You don't know how hard it was to walk away from you downstairs, Harry. It--it was the hardest thing I've ever done..."

Tears started spilling down her cheeks and he crouched next to the chair, taking her hands in his. "I know, Tilda, I know. And I have to admit--I had a perfectly miserable night, sitting down there alone, thinking of you up here alone, in your bed...."

A sudden realisation seemed to sweep over her and she stood, aghast. "Is that why you're here, then? Came to finish what we started? Thought I'd just leap into your arms and start ripping your clothes off again?"

He swallowed, standing and backing up. "No, no! Of course not..."

Well, maybe...

"Because I'm not like that! You can't--you can't just--" she sputtered, shaking her finger in his face.

"No, no, I didn't--I wasn't--"

"Because even though you're the same person--technically you're not! I'm not in love with you, I'm in love with him! And yes, I know that isn't right. But I'm trying to deal with that in my own way, without being a dirty old woman, and your being here is definitely not helping!"

He swallowed, not having anticipated this. But he nodded; she had a point. It was stupid to think that she'd substitute him for his younger self. If that was even why he'd travelled through time.

"Sorry, I just--I just wanted to see you again, and the birthday wishing spell takes you back exactly half your lifetime, so this is the only time I'd ever be able to do this and end up here, on this night. Can we just talk? I think if we could talk, I'd understand better why you were so afraid...."

"Afraid? Oh, it's all my fault, is it? Because I didn't want to lose my job and have to move away, let alone being questioned by the police and branded a dirty old--"

"You're not a dirty old woman. Stop saying that." He looked at her gently. "First: I don't blame you for pulling back from me. Frankly, I think that having something new to be miserable about did me some good. At least I wasn't worrying about becoming a murderer or a victim, or dwelling on how it was my fault that Sirius died.... But even though I can't remember anything of my present life, I have this nagging feeling that leaving Little Whinging and even your teaching job wouldn't be as scary as you might think. You might be pleasantly surprised."

She scrutinised him suspiciously. "Are you telling me something about my future?"

"No! No, I--I'm definitely not supposed to be doing that, and I didn't intend to. I couldn't even if I wanted to, because of this memory charm that's made me forget just about everything after I was sixteen. I'm just saying that if that's what's frightening you--"

She paced, running her hands through her hair again. "Oh, I see how it is. You came here to get me to go downstairs and finish what I started with him. With young you--"

"No!" he cried, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Whatever you do, don't do that!"

She shook him off, still looking at him with deep suspicion. "Why not?" she said slowly. "It would still be you, you'd have the memory of it--"

"But I shouldn't!" he exclaimed. "If you did that--you'd be changing time! I'm supposed to spend tonight downstairs in your living room, alone, feeling sorry for myself. I'm definitely not supposed to be having sex for the first time, let alone with you."

She frowned. "Fine. Good. I didn't say I was going to, for heaven's sake. I was just assuming that was why you came here." She crossed her arms and looked a bit sheepish.

He stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders. "I know you're a good person, Tilda. And even though I did resent you for doing the right thing, I also got over it and went on with my life..."

"Went on with your life? Does that mean--you did it? You--you killed him?" Harry clamped his mouth tightly, glancing around nervously, as though the sight of something in her bedroom might give him a clue about what he might tell her.

"I really don't know. Since I'm here, that seems likely. But I can't say anything about the future, and because of the memory charm I don't know the full story myself..."

"Well, if you've supposedly gone on with your life then how is it you're still obsessed with what happened between us sixteen years later?" she went on in disbelief.

"I--I'll try to explain... It's not that I'm obsessed, it's--well, it's a long story..." He didn't know what else he could say.

She backed up from him. "Yes, I'll just bet it is hard to explain stalking me back through sixteen years, half your lifetime..." Her voice shook and he could tell that she was frightened. He wondered whether he had travelled back through time to sleep with her, and he was hoping very hard that that wasn't it, because he would have to feel very, very ashamed if it was.

"What's the word?" he asked vaguely, rapping his head with his knuckles. "Closure! That's it. I need--closure--" That must be it, he thought. Otherwise why would Parvati have had him do this? That and maintaining the timeline...

She snorted. "You sound like a bad pop psychologist. Honestly! That's why you came to see me tonight, for closure? You couldn't have got that with the forty-eight year old version of me?" Her eyes flew open. "Unless--oh, God, am I not alive in sixteen--?"

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears with his hands, humming loudly. He was surprised when she pulled his hands away from his ears and hissed at him, "Listen to me! Am I alive in sixteen years?" Her eyes were wide with fear and he stared helplessly at her, causing her to deflate a little. "Oh, God, that's why you've come back to see me? Because you can't see me in your time anymore..."

Her voice caught and Harry cradled her face in his hands. "No," he said adamantly. "I shouldn't tell you anything about the future, but it's little enough to tell you this: I do think you're still alive in sixteen years." He swallowed; he wasn't lying, not exactly. He had no reason to think that was why he'd come back through time to see her. For some reason his mind conjured up an image of Tilda in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. But that's ridiculous. It must be Luna, all grown up... Yes, that was probably it, a stray memory of Luna had slipped through.... But he still had no real reason to believe she'd died before her forty-eighth birthday, so he didn't think of reassuring her as lying.

She looked like she was still deciding whether to believe him. He continued to cradle her face in his hands, the urge to kiss her very strong. He took his shaking hands away, however, standing up straight and hoping that whatever he was supposed to do, he would still be able to do it. The last thing he remembered of his adult life, before he cast the birthday wish spell, was Parvati telling him that he needed to do this because he already had, and if he didn't, then he'd be changing time. He hoped he would somehow know to do whatever was necessary to preserve the world he had come from.

The world he had now forgotten.

How would he know if he had succeeded? Would he get his memories back? he wondered. He hoped so. It was very frustrating to be working in the dark, to know nothing but that he loved Tilda yet, very deeply, and that he would do anything for her...

"Harry?"

He'd let his mind wander; suddenly an enormous yawn overtook him. He glanced at the bed. "I don't suppose--could I sleep here? I don't think I'm in the habit of staying up this late recently. Getting to be an old man," he added, grinning.

She hit him on the arm playfully. "Well, then, now that we're the same age, what does that make me?"

He grinned at her, then looked her up and down slowly, his breath catching. "It makes you an utterly beautiful old woman," he told her softly. Her lip trembled and he wondered whether he was breaking down her defences... and then he wondered whether he wanted to. He felt the twinge of guilt again, wondering whether he was there to seduce her. How would he know what was the right thing to do while he was in this time? Whether his actions were preserving or changing the timeline?

He couldn't know.

He just had to act on faith.

He held his hand out to her and she took it without question. He led her to the bed and sat down, patting the mattress next to him. "Let's talk, just like we used to, until we fall asleep," he said quietly. "I mean--surely there's something about the first sixteen years of my life I didn't get a chance to tell you in the last fortnight."

"And what about secrecy and not telling Muggles about magic and all that?" she said, sitting next to him and raising one eyebrow.

He shrugged. "I'm already travelling through time to be here. In for a penny, in for a pound, wouldn't you say? Besides, he's the one who's not supposed to tell you about magic, which is rather a moot point now." She laughed and he stared at her. "What?"

"Moot point. You are all grown up, aren't you? I can't imagine you--er, him--saying that."

He nodded and smiled. "Well, my memory's been altered, to make it difficult for me to divulge information about the future, but I reckon my speech isn't affected by that."

"I'm sorry, I interrupted. You were saying?" she said softly, turning to face him. Harry drew in his breath; she was as beautiful as he remembered....

"Um...Oh, right. I was saying--worrying about him telling you about magic is a moot point since he already did. My big taboo is telling about the future."

She nodded. "I understand." She sighed. "You know, actually, it would be wonderful to talk. I had hoped to talk to you--him--some more tonight. I didn't count on--on kissing getting in the way of that. I like talking to you--him." Her smile was heartbreaking; he couldn't take his eyes off her. "Obviously I couldn't stay downstairs and propose that we just talk after--well, after--"

"Right," he said softly. What was happening? Their faces seemed to be moving closer and closer together....

Suddenly he drew back and said, "So. Talking. Yes. That's what we're going to do. Talk. Erm. Right."

God, I sound like an idiot, he thought nervously. But he had so wanted to kiss her moments before and they'd just finished agreeing that that was what had got in the way of her continuing to talk to sixteen-year-old Harry.

He pulled himself back toward the headboard and propped some pillows behind his head, folding his hands on his stomach. "Come on. Let's just sit back and talk."



Many, Many thanks to Rena for beta-reading this chapter.

More information on my HP fanfiction and essays can also be found HERE.

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